Thursday, 6 February 2014

Hello all! Its been an awesome week, definitely crazy,but I think crazy is more normal than normal out here, if that makes any sense at all.

If there is anything that the mission has taught me it's that there is no such thing as a coincidence. It never ceases to amaze me the poeple that are placed in our path or the trials that we have to face. They always serve a purpose when we are looking back.

So we have this investigator. One day we were knocking doors (which here is more like yelling through gates ¨SALUUUDDOOOOSS, BUENNAAAAS¨) and at the very last house at the verrrry end of our area, we met a man and set an appointment to return. When we came back he wasn´t home, but his nephew who lives above him was. We called him down and honestly from first appearance we didn't really think he would want to talk to us, he had lots of tattoos and earrings, etc., but he ended up being super nice and rad. We ended up talking to him and found out that he had been visited by missionaries before when he was 7 and that his family had visited the church back then. He had awesome memories of the elders who taught him and said that they had lost contact when he moved out to Curacao (island by aruba). So we set a return appointment with thim and invited him to come to the church.

When we came back for the cita (appt) he wasn't there and we were super bummed, we assumed that we wouldn´t ever see him again. But that very next Sunday he showed up at the church and said he felt really bad for not being there. We set another cita for the next day and it went really well, butttt after that he kinda just fell off the map, wasn't home and didn't answer his phone. So we decided to go back one last time, and lo and behold, he was there, and let us know that some stuff had been going on in his family and so he hadn't been able to go to the church. Andd we found out that he was going to be moving the next day, AND not only that, but he was going to be moving to the same street that we live on, wayyyy closer. But once again after a cita or two he started dissapearing so we decided to stop trying to visit him. This past week (about a week or two later) we were in a cita teaching a brand new awesomeee family we had just found...and guess who comes walking up the stairs to there house and happens to be a close family friend! This samee guy! We were nowhere near where he lives and had no idea they even knew each other. What are the chances? and we hadn't been even planning on being there that day because we had had to move the cita last minute. So we´re hoping to be able to keep moving forward, anddd just learned from a member, that hadn't seen him since he was little, but was so excited when he showed up that first week, that his mom is a menosactiva.

Coincidence? yaa no I don´t believe in those things anymore.

So that was basically a big confusing paragraph, but the moral of the story is, when there is something that is meant to be put in our path, Heavenly Father finds a way to put it or him there over and over again even when we are cluelessly walking away. We´re hoping to start sharing with him again soon, obviously there's a reason for all of the run-ins.

Honestly this transfer has been a really big learning experience for me, its had some major ups and some major downs, but it's pushed me to keep moving forward. We´re never done learning anddd we really can never do it on our own. I know for a fact that I would have never survived the last year without the help of a loving PATIENT and ever present Heavenly Father and the people that he has placed in my path. We really can never be standing still-- time just keeps chugging along! Which is sometimes a super bummer, maybe it could just pause for a little while, like 6 months or so? I mean its only fair, 2 years sounds great--I got lots to do:)